A Meanwhile
by spookfrost
Summary: Snapshots of Baby Tooth's perspective.


Jack was amazingly hasty.

When he snatched her seconds before that charging Nightmare (_ "Hey, little Baby Tooth. You okay?" _) and when he just as solitarily lunged after Pitch into that tsunami of Nightmares (of which some had been Sandman's ashes) equally unexpecting the transcending ice that tumbled from him like a bomb of lightning, Baby Tooth was mostly appreciative. When he presumed to prowl into a setup by the Boogeyman for some voice more compelling than her own despite how it struck only in Jack's mind, Baby Tooth was perturbed enough…

Then they were looking at her caged sisters, and Jack was going to get them out of there just as soon as he turned and plummeted, along with Baby Tooth's insides, into the mounds of canisters like some poor seamster scrambling for a needle in a haystack.

Realizations amplified her fears, among them her helplessness.

While the point of Baby Tooth accompanying Jack was to alert the Guardians if Pitch made another major move, she needed to be out the Lair to do so; in the twisting few seconds Baby Tooth chewed over giving up on Jack as well as her sisters so quickly, the followed tunnel disappeared, and Baby Tooth was in one of the cages.

Pitch brandished the recollections Jack was missing.

His silkily resonating spiel (as distorting as the shadows Jack bounded after then shrank from) was as difficult for Jack to deny, and the minifairies could only rattle their cages before Jack was goaded into shadows only the Lair's master reappeared from. (_ "—what did _you _do?" _)

The minifairies wailed.

Pitch, without turning from his unbrightening globe, snapped his fingers for a Nightmare to gobble Baby Tooth from her cage.

The minifairies sat in quiet.

Pitch petted the Nightmare before disintegrating it so Baby Tooth was squirming in his fist. "Don't worry," he said. "You'll get to see your friend again. I believe some shows are even better with a guest."

So Baby Tooth was swiftly towed through tunnels more gloomy than any corridor in the Boogeyman's abode, despite the greens and pastels, since every egg was squashed. From a treeline as shady as Pitch's grin after he turned his fist so she faced a certain egg hunt, Baby Tooth keened as everyone there was wilting with betrayal. Pitch laughed.

Magical enshroudment still. Everyone there was turning away, in more ways than one. And everyone's eyes glistened.

Pitch basked in the fears that didn't wane even as Jack's figure did in the sky. (Fear of and for the failed.) The fading Guardians didn't follow Jack in any way except their peripheral perception, but they hunched more when the chill was absent again. Baby Tooth wasn't positive who to go to. Anyway, not yet outside Pitch's clutches, Baby Tooth hardly blinked then Tooth, Bunny, and North were seas behind.

From a treeline in Pennsylvania, Baby Tooth squinted at Jack. Jack hung to the clouds and the Nightmare King noted, "Such fear to look any closer at more of the children whose devastation he helped bring about. Everywhere, too. No, you can't change this with fun little snowflakes or wintry games."

While the Lair's mouth in Burgess waited, Jack whirled to Antarctica.

Baby Tooth's heart sank.

Pitch's excuse for one soared. "Now look at _that_. Perhaps greater than what I'd looked forward to. However… Oh, what did they call you. _'Baby Tooth' _? We shouldn't be that surprised Jack's not coming back to help you or the others. To play a last-ditch hero. A forced role, anyway. It's time all of that has been given up."

Antarctica wasn't as rich in shadows as Pitch Black must've wished, but he had to appreciate chasms, like the one Jack was going to throw his past into. Baby Tooth was going to cry out, but Pitch waved her into some void, and Baby Tooth floated in it for minutes before she was in Pitch's fist once more.

For what was not a trade.

Whether or not it was, Baby Tooth told Jack no (his staff held more importance than one of the trillion minifairies possibly dying already), and par for the course, Jack only obeyed his heart. (_ "...Alright. Now let her go." _) His warm and quite sleeved heart. ( _"No. You said you wanted to be alone." _) Baby Tooth regretted not stabbing Pitch sooner.

Then, was brokenness.

Then, reminiscently, Baby Tooth opening her eyes in the icy hands of thankfully not Death, nor Pitch Black, but Jack as he gently asked if she was alright.

Cross-armed, she less nodded than sneezed. But temperature she never held against Jack.

Jack's hastiness, she partly, only partly now, held against him.

Since she saw Jack—his sorrow, and his benevolence—Baby Tooth was alright letting go.

Anyway, the Nightmare King was the feeder of such conflicts, and those bygones couldn't lift them from their newest unfavorable chasm. Crumpled were her wings and her friend against the corner. Uncovering Jack's memories was incredibly relieving.

More pieces of him reunited. Then: radiance. Soaring.

Baby Tooth pumped her fists and squealed from Jack's shoulder.

In two minutes, they were once more looking down that cavity in Burgess. Baby Tooth wasn't unready.

Jack was a wildcard.

Jack was a Guardian.

The minifairies were Guardians too, technically. Dismayingly, however, their wings died alongside the Belief, so they couldn't achieve much but their footing as Jack unlocked their cages, staring at him and the hollow globe Pitch had ensured was as prominent as red numbers on a time bomb.

As Jack paced in its still rapidly dwindling glow, he panted, "There's gotta be something else. Something I'm not too slow for," and the minifairies faintly trilled, just as hopefully as well as hopelessly. As thousands of Lights became hundreds, Jack said, "Bunny, Tooth, and North—I should probably go find them."

Baby Tooth twittered.

"...Almost dropped you on our way here, Baby Tooth. 'Til you can fly, it might be best that you wait here."

Uncertainty intensified, especially as those hundreds became dozens. Then half a dozen. Then five, four, three, two.

One.

_"Jamie!" _

Well, if the recent past reminded anyone of one thing, it was that even one person could make a big difference.

Baby Tooth crawled from Jack's shoulder to the palm by it to the ledge carried to. Jack was going to check on the believer. The future was hardly less unseeable, but Jack smiled.

"It's gonna be alright. This time… This—This time Pitch won't see it all coming. Fear's not the strongest. Just keep hanging in there," The minifairies' fears had yet to weaken, but as Jack, on his way out, spun for a second to salute and loudly add, "And I'm not ditching anyone again, I promise," they did, at least, believe him.

Baby Tooth wished him luck. She wished everyone luck, and as she stared at the globe, she clung to the fact that one way or another, helplessness was temporary.

* * *

**[cross-posted on ao3. this was supposed to end up fitting into some other fic (wip) but ah well]**


End file.
